


Pain in Going Home Again

by jtspz1347



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 08:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20171164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jtspz1347/pseuds/jtspz1347
Summary: What is there to go home to, when there is pain in going home again?A fic about emotional pain and trauma, and how we process it. Gerard Keay finds a dangerous stranger in his home, and when he gets helped instead of hurt, he isn’t sure he wants it.





	Pain in Going Home Again

He walked in to absolute silence. The door slamming shut behind him was as loud as it normally was, and he didn’t think anything of it, the quiet in his house. But as he fiddled with his keys, it became more and more obvious.  
Something was wrong.  
He debated turning around and leaving, but decided against it. If it was his mother, if she needed help, there was no way he could leave. He silently slipped out of his coat, half waiting for a scream of his name. He kept his boots on, though, as he crept through the house. He wasn’t sure if he would need to run.  
The house was dark, and he crept through, checking each room. Nothing in the kitchen, or his room, or the bathrooms, until he was heading towards the last option, her room-- the library.   
It was there that he found them.  
The man was standing in the corner of the room, with a bored expression and a single hand resting on his mother’s shoulder. His mother, on the other hand, looked as if she might leap up at any moment, fury hardening her face and curling her fists.   
He knew what to do in this situation: act quickly or think quickly. He chose the latter.   
His tone was nonchalant as he sat down in his usual chair, though he never took his eyes off his mother for a single moment.  
“What’s this, then?”  
The stranger blinked, surprised, but said nothing.  
He began unlacing one boot methodically, taking it off and letting it slam on the floor. Noone moved.  
“Not a friendly visit, I assume?”  
His mother let out a growl, but didn’t speak. The man studied him with piercing blue eyes.  
“Your mother has something that belongs to me.”  
“A book?” His response was immediate, and it seemed to take the stranger aback for a moment.  
The pause gave him time to think. The two newest books were under her mattress, there were three in the basement encased in concrete, and the one that had nearly killed her was scattered across the house, pages kept in sealed bags inside the walls.  
The seconds felt like hours in her dark library.  
“Yes,” the stranger replied.  
“Hm,” was all he said, unlacing his other boot. His eyes were still trained on his mother. “Well, go ahead and take it then. Just be prepared for her to take it back.” He took off the unlaced boot and dropped it on the floor with another heavy thud. He leaned back in his chair and looked away from his mother, finally taking a good look at the man.  
Lean, with a hungry look on his face. Blue eyes, not natural. A lightning scar, running across his neck.  
He would need to remember this man. His mother would make sure of that.  
The hand on his mother’s shoulder tightened. “Where is it?”  
“You’ll have to be more specific. She has many books, and a lot of hiding places.”  
The answer came like a hiss.  
“Ex Altiora.”  
He didn’t know it.  
He didn’t know the book, and it was suddenly harder to breathe, but he didn’t show it. His eyes became fixed on his mother again, and hot panic was rising in his throat. What had she done? What had she done to this man to get another useless, evil book?  
Briefly he wondered if this was all there is, if his life was cleaning up after his mother’s messes, only for her to turn on him the moment he was done.  
He kept looking at his mother, whose face was like stone.   
“I don’t kn-- I don’t know which one that is. If she has it, I wouldn’t be able to find it for you,” was all he managed to say.  
“I’m not a patient man. You find that book, or I kill her.” The stranger’s terms were clear.  
Kill her?  
His air of ease had evaporated.  
Kill his mother? He wanted to laugh and sob at the same time. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been in danger before, but here was danger, standing in his face, not an entity. This man was real, with a hand on his mother’s shoulder, a hand that could strike her, or strangle her, or do any other number of harms at any moment.   
But what if he did? What if this stranger did kill her? What would he do then? Would it hurt? Would it hurt her, or rip her to shreds, or leave her crying out for him?  
Would it hurt him?  
The nervousness began to get to him, and he stood up. “If you give me time, I might--”  
“Don’t.”  
His mother’s voice was like a knife as she snarled at him.   
“Do not give it to him.”  
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “He,” he hissed at her, “will kill you.” He started to pace around the room, tearing books off of shelves, ignoring the dangerous warning hums in his hands.  
“And I,” she said viciously, “will kill you if you let him take it.” She turned to the stranger, who was now watching them both with cautious but confused eyes. “Get off of me,” she demanded, and shoved the man’s hand off. Surprisingly, he let her, and watched the scene unfold in front of him.   
“You are pathetic,” she spat at him, her hands gripping the chair’s arms. She looked ready to fly at him at any moment. “Stop doing that, stop touching them, you worthless piece of shit.”  
He paused, turning around and looking back at her. Something inside of him shifted. Broke. The words came unbidden to him before he could stop himself.  
“Do it.”  
There was a silent moment. Then the stranger spoke.  
“Are you serious?”  
He gave a nervous laugh, giddy and feverish and terrified all at once now that the words were out.   
“Kill her! I won’t give you the book. Kill her and find it yourself! You don’t even have to kill me, I’ll let you. And then,” The words were pouring out of him in a rush now, “take them all. Take every single book in this fucking library. Burn them, keep them, use them, I don’t care.”  
His mother let out an animalistic scream, and launched herself at him. He flinched, waiting for a storm of fists. And then she stopped, her head tilted to the side as if she was listening to something. The stranger behind her shifted, leaning forward onto the back of her armchair.  
She crumpled, falling to the floor, laing still and silent though her eyes were open. Her mouth was moving ever so slightly as if she was trying to speak.  
He stared at her, breathless but chest heaving. He wasn’t sure if he was waiting for her to move again or stop moving entirely. He looked up at the stranger, who was holding his hand out and saying something. He couldn’t hear, though, because his ears were ringing and the urge to vomit was so strong that he thought he might actually do so.   
Eventually the words came through to him, the stranger’s voice still sounding bored but mildly curious now.  
“My name is Mike. Mike Crew. And you,” Mike said, looking him up and down, “are clearly not who I was expecting.”  
He offered a trembling hand to Mike, to the man who had hurt--was hurting--his mother. They shook hands.  
“Gerard. Gerard Keay. Thank you.”  
And then, he turned, knelt at the still body of his mother, and began to weep.

Mike had led him away, after a while. While he had been staring at his mother, Mike had rummaged through the house, finding Ex Altiora under the false bottom of her desk drawers.  
He had been weeping for what felt like an eternity-- first for himself, then for his mother, and then for himself again-- when Mike spoke to him again.  
“Why are you crying?”  
He wasn’t sure how to make Mike understand. Tears all look the same on the outside, no matter who they’re cried for.  
“You wanted her gone. I’m doing what you asked.” Mike’s voice was curious, not harsh, but it felt heavy on his shoulders.   
He stayed on the ground, knelt by his mother’s body. “I do,” he said. “I do want her gone, but I…” he looked up at Mike miserably, not able to find the words he wanted. “She’s my mother.”  
“And that complicates this?”  
He didn’t know how to respond to that, and so he stayed silent. He wanted to touch her, the idea of it felt like a sin, like giving in to what she wanted from him. It felt like defeat.  
In the end, he couldn’t deal with it, and when Mike pulled him away, he let him. Mike’s eyes were not kind, but they were not cruel, either.  
“Let’s get you something to eat.”

He felt like Mike might be just the smallest bit fascinated by his behavior, as they walked down the street. Every step that he walked away from her, and from that house, he felt his heart getting lighter and a smile beginning to form. He was still crying, through it all.  
The waitress at the diner didn’t seem to mind when they walked in; she knew him and let them pass into the restaurant easily. He waved to the old man in the farthest booth in the back, and nodded to the two waitresses behind the counter.  
All the while, Mike was watching him with bright blue eyes, tracking his every movement. He ordered more food than he thought they could both eat; Mike ordered a black coffee.  
It was then that they spoke to each other again, after the silence.  
He nodded towards the coffee, his tone sarcastic as he said, “Nutritious.”  
Mike shrugged, and held up his mug as if to say ‘cheers’. “Not much else that interests me these days,” he replied cooly.  
They say in silence for a bit, Mike with his coffee and him with his pancakes, eggs, fruit, and a burger.   
“So,” Mike said, finally breaking the silence as the waitress refilled his cup, “you don’t want to kill her, but you were fine with leaving her there?”  
He said nothing, only shoving a handful of fries into his mouth and staring down at his hands.  
“It’s better for me, but cruel to her, I suppose. For someone so filled with indecision, you seem fine with letting her fall for as long as I wish.” Mike leaned over the table, an unreadable look on his face. He seemed tired of waiting for a decision to be made. “Is that what you wanted?”  
Mike started to speak again, but he stopped him, still staring at the food on his plate.  
“I like to order everything when I come here.”  
“I can see that, but—“  
“I like to order everything when I come here because I don’t know when she’ll realize that I have to eat, or when she’ll decide that starvation makes me get her work done quicker.” He grabbed the soda he had been drinking, toying with the edge of the glass. “I’d endure it— I do endure it,” he said, “though. Just for the chance she’d be happy one day. So happy with me that she’d do something for me, like order takeout, or cook for the both of us.”  
There was a silence from the other side of the table.  
“She did that once, actually. My thirteenth birthday, she bought a cake, and didn’t say no when I asked her if she baked it herself. It was good enough for me.”  
He wanted Mike to understand, to stop asking questions. The silence was unbearable, though, and so he kept talking.  
“I can’t kill her.”  
“Because she didn’t bake you a cake? The woman looked ready to kill you.”  
He felt his face get hot, because Mike wasn’t getting it and despite it all, she was his mother. “No, she... I can’t be the one to kill her. I can’t make that decision.”  
“Then leave it up to me.”  
“But that’s the thing,” he said, leaning in with a fierce, haunted look. “It’s the same. Giving you permission is the same as killing her myself.”  
He wished that Mike could read his mind, and do it without his words, without his wanting. But reading his mind would still mean he made Mike want to kill her.  
This hour of respite would have to be enough.   
They finished their meal in silence.  
“I have to go back,” he said, putting money on the table. Mike slid it back towards him and put down his own money. He stared at it, uncomfortable but grateful all the same.  
“I have something to show you,” was all he said.

It brought him a bit of satisfaction that Mike was happy here, too. He could feel it in his chest, the need to make him happy. It wasn’t the frantic feeling he had with his mother. It wasn’t the same as wanting to reach across the chasm between them, finding any small shred of tenderness.  
This? This was comfortable.   
He wasn’t sure if this was what it was like to have friends; he had had friends before, but they always seemed small, ignorant. He wouldn’t burden them with the horror of knowing what was out there, but all the same he wished they knew.  
Here was someone who knew. Here was someone who was unbothered by him, unbothered by it all.   
He lit a cigarette, offering the pack to Mike before gazing out across the pier, at the seemingly endless ocean before them.  
Mike raised an eyebrow at the offer. “You’d think you’d want to keep yourself healthy. Never know when you need to run from strangers who break into your house.”  
“Mm. Does that mean you don’t want one?”  
Mike smirked, taking a cigarette. “I never said that. I only said to look after yourself.”  
Mike turned the cigarette over in his hand for a moment, and he lit it for him. The smoke swirled around him in funny patterns, like it was waiting for him to dismiss it.  
“Nice trick,” he said, nodding to the smoke. He took a drag from his own, musing to himself, “Must be nice.”  
“You could have the same,” Mike said.  
He didn’t answer.  
“You’re already one of us, almost. All the danger, none of the benefits.”  
“Mm. Maybe.”  
“She wouldn’t be able to hurt you, then.”  
The smoke around Mike was suffocating, but he took another drag anyway.  
“She’ll always find a way to hurt me.”  
“Hmm. If you say so.”  
They sat together, smoking, looking out to the water, watching the sun go down.  
He flicked the end of his cigarette into the water.   
“It’s time, I think. To go home.”

He turned to Mike. “I don’t want to go back.”  
And Mike tilted his head, studying him intensely. “But don’t you?”  
“I don’t, I absolutely don’t. I’m not sure if I can ever walk back into that house.” He sucked in a deep breath, “She’ll know that I left her.”  
“Then don’t go back inside. Let me kill her, and then leave.”  
He hated that he paused at those words. He hated that he wanted to let Mike do it so badly that his blood felt like fire. He hated that, as much as he wanted it, he felt his breath catch in his throat.  
“I want to leave her,” he said, desperately trying to get Mike to understand what he meant, “she can’t. She can’t be alone. I can’t leave her alone— or dead,” he said, seeing Mike’s eyebrow raise. “She can’t be alone and I’m the only one she has.”  
He faced the house again, squaring his shoulders.  
“Thank you,” he said, not looking at Mike. “I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again.”  
“I suppose you’re right,” said Mike, the ever-present bored tone tinged with something akin to concern. “But then again, I don’t mind not seeing you again if it means you’ll be alright.”  
He let out a shaky laugh. “I might not be alright, but maybe one day.”  
The last words Mike ever spoke to him gave him a mixture of comfort and a disquiet in his heart. “If you ever change your mind, there’s always those willing to help. If, that is, you’re willing to do what they ask.”  
And with that, Mike was gone, and he was truly alone.   
Every step towards the door of his house felt like shame; every step felt as if he was cutting off his hands and feet, binding himself to her. If he believed in a god, he would have prayed for forgiveness. Instead, he only asked himself for forgiveness for what grief he was about to inflict.  
He opened the door, and stepped inside.


End file.
